How to use the Discussion Forum
The Discussion Forum is a online bulletin board. It is used for discussion within a WebCT course. Anyone within the course may place messages on the bulletin board. This is called ‘posting a message’. Everyone within the topic can read all messages.
WebCT keeps track of the messages read by each student and will initially show only the new, unread messages. However, every message is stored, and can be easily accessed.
When you go into the Discussion Board you will see a menu at the top of the screen and any messages will be displayed below.
Click the topic containing the messages you want to read. The Discussion Messages screen appears.
The first section in the discussion messages window is a row of buttons that deals with the messages.
Compose message opens a pop-up window that allows you to create and post a new message.
Update Listing will contact the server and retrieve any discussion items posted since you were inside in the discussion tool.
Search will bring up a pop-up window for you to enter search criteria to find certain message(s).
Mark all as read will remove special display features that normally indicate new, unread discussion postings ( as shown below).
The second section in the discussion messages window deals with how and what messages are displayed.
Display All / Unread - Toggles between viewing all postings and just the postings which are unread.
Select folder - select for which topic you'd like to view postings. Your instructor may set up topics for each learning objective or chapter in your textbook.Threaded / Unthreaded toggles the display of discussion postings between sorted by date and sorted (and grouped) by topic. As you can see from the figure below, the current display is set to "threaded", so that all postings that have "What is the author's point" in the subject line are grouped together. The posting titled "Question 3, page 45" is given a new grouping.
The third section in the in the discussion messages window are actions that you can perform; you must select at least one discussion posting before selecting one of these actions.
Compile - Display all selected postings in one window so you can view their content all at once.
Mark as read - Remove special display features that normally indicate new, unread postings.
Mark as unread - Adds special display features that indicate new, unread postings.To Read a message
Once you are in the Discussion Messages screen, click the subject of the message that you would like to read.
A new window will pop-up with the message you selected to read.
Note: When you click on the subject of the message you want to read, and nothing happens it means either you have a pop-up blocker installed on your computer or your browser has one of its own. To resolve this issue, go to Pop-Up Blocker help webpage.
If the message includes a file attachment, you will see a paper clip icon in the Status column in Discussion Messages as well as in the message itself. To see the attached file, click the paper clip icon. The Attachments screen appears. Note: It is recommended that you install updated anti-virus software before viewing or downloading attachments. To display the file attachment, click the hyperlinked file name. The file opens in the view frame. To download the file attachment, click the paper clip icon. The Attachments screen appears. Select the file, and then click Download. Your browser's file download window appears. Select the save to disk option, and choose the saving location. When the download is complete, click Close.
When you have finished reading the discussion posting, you can either
- Reply
- Reply Privately
- Quote
- Download the posting
- Close the message. The Discussion Messages screen appears.
To respond to a message
Click on REPLY. Or Use the QUOTE option. This is similar to reply but the original message is included into the reply as a quote.
To start a new discussion topic
Click on COMPOSE MESSAGE. The Compose Discussion Message screen appears in a new pop-up window.
Choose the Topic in which you want to raise a new issue for discussion.
In the Subject text box, enter the subject for your message.
In the Message text box, enter your message.
If you want to attach a file
Once you are done, click on Preview if you'd like to preview your message before posting, then click on Post.
To read new messages
To read new messages that may have been posted while you were in the Discussion Board, Click on UPDATE LISTING.
All new messages subject will be in "bold."
Compiling and downloading messages
This feature allows you to select messages, compile them into one file, and download the file to save or later print. This saves you from downloading each message individually.
From the Discussions page, click the topic that contains the messages that you want to download. To select messages from all topics click All.
You will then see a list of all the discussion messages posted under that topic as in the figure below. If you selected All you will see every discussion message. Select all the messages that you want to compile and then click on Compile.
All the compiled messages will appear in a new window. You can either print them or save them as text file.
